48 “juxtaposition of what . . . themes”: Jean-Louis Comolli, “Fatal Rendezvous,” in Cinema and the Shoah: An Art Confronts the Tragedy of the Twentieth Century, ed. Jean-Michel Frodon, trans. Anna Harrison and Tom Mes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), 62.
49 “One cannot contemplate . . . horrors”: Robin Wood, Hitchcock’s Films Revisited (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 150.
50 “He seemed genuinely . . . Jews”: Peter Bogdanovich, “Hitchcock High and Low,” New York, May 6, 1974, 75.
50 “here we are . . . brutality”: Alfred Hitchcock, interview by Richard Schickel, The Men Who Made the Movies: Alfred Hitchcock, PBS, November 4, 1973.
50 “sponge, eager to . . . design”: Jane Sloan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Filmography and Bibliography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 37.
51 “nauseating . . . stomach-turning . . . unnecessarily tasteless”: Hitchcock at the NFT, BBC One, December 30, 1969. Viewed at the BFI Southbank Mediatheque, London.
51 “I would say . . . business”: Ibid.
51 “people die without . . . pain”: Quoted in Robert Sklar, “Death at Work: Hitchcock’s Violence and Spectator Identification,” in After Hitchcock: Influence, Imitation, and Intertexuality, ed. David Boyd and R. Barton Palmer (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), 219. Original source is “Le Devoir” interview, folder no. 96, Sam Peckinpah Collection, MHL.
51 “Just another day . . . this”: Barry Foster, speaking in The Story of Frenzy, DVD extra on Frenzy, 2005.
51 “the effect is . . . there”: Ibid.
3: THE AUTEUR
53 “but Hitch didn’t . . . thing”: Ronald Neame, interviewed by Tim Kirby for Reputations, BBC, PMC WHS.
53 “I saw Hitchcock . . . head”: Ibid.
53 “I really hate the word artistic”: Gerald Pratley, “Alfred Hitchcock’s Working Credo,” Films in Review 3, no. 10 (December 1952): 502.
53 “I have too . . . critics”: Ibid., 503.
54 “prodigiously bored”: André Bazin, “Hitchcock vs. Hitchcock,” in The Cinema of Cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock (New York: Seaver Books, 1982), 144. Originally appeared in Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 39, October 1954.
54 “No, the light . . . tomorrow”: Ibid., 145.
54 “one’s first reaction . . . foolish”: Richard Roud, “The French Line,” Sight & Sound 29, no. 4 (Autumn 1960): 167.
55 “this Hitchcock idolatry”: Ibid., 169.
55 Hitchcock arranged for . . . days: Peggy Robertson to Jean Douchet, June 14, 1963, AHC MHL.
55 excepting a night . . . paid: Suzanne Gauthier to Miss Minotto at the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, June 28, 1963, AHC MHL.
55 “They are their . . . man”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Films We Could Make,” London Evening News, November 16, 1927, 13.
56 “Fresh from Berlin . . . patent”: June Tripp, The Glass Ladder (London: William Heinemann, 1960), 156.
57 “began to tell . . . Woolf”: Balcon, Michael Balcon Presents, 26.
57 “as humiliating for . . . other”: Ivor Montagu, The Youngest Son (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1970), 349.
57 “in the nature . . . light”: Ivor Montagu, “Working with Hitchcock,” Sight & Sound 49, no. 3 (Summer 1980): 190.
58 “what the film . . . qualities”: Ibid.
58 “observation of familiar . . . compositions”: Montagu, The Youngest Son, 349.
58 “a born celebrity”: Hitchcock O’Connell and Bouzereau, Alma Hitchcock, 3.
58 “seamy side of film life” . . . “cutter””: Joan Weston Edwards, “Making Good in the Film Trade,” unknown publication, February 26, 1927, AHC MHL.
58 A variety of . . . Griffith: Hitchcock O’Connell and Bouzerau, Alma Hitchcock, 25.
59 “unthinkable for a . . . position”: Alma Reville Hitchcock, “My Husband Hates Suspense,” Everywoman’s Family Circle, June 1958, 37.
59 “extremely self-conscious . . . education”: Hitchcock O’Connell and Bouzereau, Alma Hitchcock, 19.
59 Alma even had . . . crowds: Ibid., 17.
60 “groaned, nodded her head, and burped”: Alfred Hitchcock, “The Woman Who Knows Too Much,” McCall’s, March 1956, 12.
60 As observed by . . . fantasy: McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 1656 of 20272, Kindle.
60 “sweet soul, gave . . . marvelously”: Hitchcock, “I Begin with a Nightmare,” 17.
60 “Like a man . . . work”: Ibid.
60 “standing four-foot-eleven . . . pyjamas”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Life Among the Stars,” News Chronicle, March 1, 1937, 15.
60 It’s been said . . . Germany: Patrick McGilligan and Peter Ackroyd both make this point in their biographies of Hitchcock.
61 “one or two . . . ended”: A. J. Hitchcock, “Titles—Artistic and Otherwise,” Motion Picture Studio, July 23, 1921, 6.
61 “my most interesting . . . fascinating”: Alfred Hitchcock, “My Spies,” Film Weekly, May 30, 1936, 27.
61 “I have some . . . mother”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Lecture at Columbia University,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 1, 267. Full transcript of the lecture in AHC MHL.
63 “We don’t show . . . show”: John P. Shanley, “Lady Producer of Thrillers,” New York Times, May 29, 1960, 11.
63 “Let ’em suffer . . . turning”: Gilbert Millstein, “Harrison Horror Story,” New York Times, July 21, 1957, 23.
63 “Alfred Hitchcock was . . . shots”: Janet Leigh with Christopher Nickens, Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller (London: Pavilion Books, 1995), 67.
63 “spontaneous, not something . . . attention”: “Hitchcock’s Shower Scene: Another View,” Cinefantastique 16, no. 4 (October 1986): 66. Saul Bass Collection, MHL.
64 “Hitch was always . . . not”: Ibid.
64 “This is our . . . sell”: Evan Hunter to Scott Meredith, October 27, 1961, Evan Hunter Collection, HGARC.
64 “No, you didn’t . . . Hitchcock did”: Evan Hunter, Me and Hitch (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), 4.
64 “about 99.44-percent Hitchcock”: Maloney, “What Happens After That?” 25.
64 “I dictate the picture . . . Hitchcock”: Pamela Robertson Wojcik, “The Author of This Claptrap: Cornell Woolrich, Alfred Hitchcock, and Rear Window,” in Hitchcock at the Source: The Auteur as Adaptor, ed. R. Barton Palmer and David Boyd (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 218. Quoting from AH’s deposition in the case of Stewart v. Abend. See also http://www.writingwithhitchcock.com/ontherecord.html.
65 “biggest trouble is . . . lines”: Gerald Clark, “Here’s Hitchcock’s Recipe for Suspense,” Weekend Magazine, The Standard, December 22, 1951, 11.
65 “I can’t really . . . picture”: Auiler, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, 24.
65 Original scripts were . . . Vidal: Such lists and correspondence are located in various parts of Hitchcock’s papers, AHC MHL.
65 “I never read . . . book”: Alfred Hitchcock, “How I Make My Films,” News Chronicle, March 5, 1937, 14.
65 “a very lucky . . . on it”: “Story Conference for Family Plot,” 44, Ernest Lehman Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. See also McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 16344 of 20272, Kindle.
66 Certainly, he had . . . studios: See Leonard J. Leff, Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987).
66 “The first scene . . . novel”: Baer, Classic American Films, 61.
67 “Certain writers want . . . play”: Peter Bogdanovich, “Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980),” in Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), loc. 9300 of 15740, Kindle.
67 “unrealized ambition is . . . Rushmore”: Lawrence Greene, “He Is a Camera,” Esquire, August 1952, 110.
67 “They were all . . . them”: Baer, Classic American Films, 63.
68 “tried to develop . . . like h
im”: Ibid., 71.
68 “a Hitchcock picture . . . pictures”: Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 392.
68 “very special kind . . . Hitchcock”: Ernest Lehman, “Screen Writer’s Recipe for ‘Hitch’s Brew,’ ” New York Times, August 2, 1959, 5.
69 “writing a bitter . . . except me”: Ernest Lehman, Kirby.
69 “My God, how . . . lists”: Transcript of Family Plot story conference, Ernest Lehman Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
70 “too many scripts . . . theme”: Charles Barr, English Hitchcock (Moffat, Scotland: Cameron and Hollis, 1999), 23.
70 “the master of . . . missing”: Samuel Taylor, speaking in Omnibus: It’s Only Another Movie, BBC One, September 26, 1986.
70 “completely vain . . . director”: Charles Bennett, Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles Bennett, ed. John Charles Bennett (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 2018), 205.
70 “We were a . . . himself”: Ibid., 67.
71 “ ‘Thank you’ was . . . vocabulary”: Coleman, The Man Who Knew Hitchcock, 181.
71 “I’m not being . . . good”: Bennett, Hitchcock’s Partner in Suspense, 52.
71 “cheerful side is . . . experience”: Evan Hunter to Scott Meredith, September 30, 1961, Evan Hunter Collection, HGARC.
71 “the script has . . . total”: AH to Evan Hunter, November 30, 1961, AHC MHL. Published in Auiler, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, 206.
71 “stuck his finger . . . door”: Hunter, Me and Hitch, 56.
72 “He essentially left . . . them”: Chris Wehner, “Chris Wehner: Interview with REAR WINDOW scribe John Michael Hayes,” http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/article/d14ec43e. Originally published in Screenwriter’s Monthly, December 2002.
72 “You know they . . . material”: Spoto, Dark Side of Genius, 361.
72 “Young man, you . . . Times”: Ibid.
73 “He wasn’t for . . . own”: Wehner, “Chris Wehner: Interview.”
73 “credit where credit was due”: Ibid.
73 “I had a . . . resented it”: John Michael Hayes, interview by Steven DeRosa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l981MGsT9n4.
74 Unthinkable, said Hitchcock . . . classic: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 71.
74 “For hours Hitchcock . . . employer”: Thornton Wilder to Isobel Wilder, May 26, 1942, The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder, eds. Robin G. Wilder and Jackson R. Bryer (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 395.
74 “He wasn’t like . . . for that”: Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, loc. 9798 of 15740, Kindle.
74 “My relationship with . . . have been”: AH, interview by Gilbert Harrison, January 4, 1980, Gilbert A. Harrison Papers Relating to Thornton Wilder, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
77 “incredible English middle class . . . people”: John Steinbeck to Annie Laurie Williams, February 21, 1944, in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, ed. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten (London: Penguin, 2001), 267.
77 “hard to work with”: Frank MacShane, The Life of Raymond Chandler (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986), 175.
77 “sarcastic and disagreeable . . . bastard”: Ibid., 171.
77 “trying to make . . . happened”: Ibid., 173. Quote from Chandler’s notes in his personal files.
77 Ormonde recalled that . . . trash: McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 10195 of 20272, Kindle.
78 “a flabby mass . . . characters”: Raymond Chandler to AH, December 6, 1950, in The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Non-Fiction, 1909–1959, eds. Tom Hiney and Frank MacShane (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000), 142.
78 “camera angles, stage . . . story”: Ibid.
78 “there must be . . . written”: Raymond Chandler to Sol Siegal, April 27, 1951, in Hiney and MacShane, eds., Raymond Chandler Papers, 162.
78 However, in postproduction Hitchcock . . . executives: Charles Barr, Vertigo, 2nd ed. (London: BFI, 2012), 11. See also Dan Auiler, Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (London: Titan, 1999).
79 “the type of . . . suspense”: AH to Vladimir Nabokov, November 19, 1964, AHC MHL.
79 “As I indicated . . . story-teller”: Ibid.
80 “symbolized the more . . . symbolism”: Hunter, Me and Hitch, 24.
80 “we are going . . . doing it?’ ”: AH to Evan Hunter, November 30, 1961, AHC MHL. Published in Auiler, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, 209.
80 “It’s those damned . . . reality”: Baer, Classic American Films, 70.
80 “shot at, caged . . . longer!”: March 9, 1969, Sandee to AHC MHL.
80 “Why should I . . . omnipotent”: Cited in Robert Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 68. A form of those words appears in numerous letters from Hitchcock’s office to members of the public during the 1960s, AHC MHL. Kapsis’s book reproduces various letters from members of the public who were confused, curious, and angered by the film’s oblique ending and the lack of apparent reason for the birds’ attack, 64–68.
4: THE WOMANIZER
81 “Hitchcock’s genius . . . pettiness”: G. A. Atkinson, “The Authenticity of Alfred,” The Era, December 16, 1931, 10.
82 “Too big and . . . looking”: AH to David O. Selznick, July 19, 1939, AHC MHL, reprinted in Auiler, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, 308.
82 “Grotesque”: AH to David O. Selznick, July 21, 1939, AHC MHL, reprinted in Auiler, Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks, 309.
82 “We liked each . . . about it”: Joan Fontaine, No Bed of Roses (London: W.H. Allen, 1978), 116.
82 “I did . . . bawling”: Leff, Hitchcock and Selznick, 74. Originally printed in Photoplay, September 1979, 57.
82 “gorgeous genius . . . demands!”: “Exposing Weaknesses of Top Ranking Stars,” Modern Screen, December 1940, 24. Joan Fontaine Collection, HGARC.
83 the “suffragette outrages” . . . ladylike: For an excellent overview of Britain’s suffragette movement, see Diane Atkinson, Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes (London: Bloomsbury, 2018).
83 When the American . . . director: Anthony Slide, The Silent Feminists: America’s First Women Directors (Lanham, MD, and London: Scarecrow Press, 1996), xvii.
84 identified in some . . . Codd: John Russell Taylor in his authorized biography Hitch names the writer as Anita Ross; in an unpublished part of an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Hitchcock called her Elsie Codd.
84 Hitchcock’s writing work . . . Morton: Bryony Dixon, “The White Shadow,” http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1423007/index.html.
84 “caught on the hop”: Balcon, Michael Balcon Presents, 16.
85 “without a soul”: Title card from The White Shadow (1923).
85 “to please women . . . audience”: Alfred Hitchcock, “How I Choose My Heroines,” in Langford Reed and Hetty Spiers, eds., Who’s Who in Filmland (London: Chapman and Hall, 1931), xxi.
85 “80 percent of . . . choice”: Huw Weldon, “Alfred Hitchcock on His Films,” The Listener, August 6, 1964, 189.
86 “never had the gift of friendship”: Donald Spoto, Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies (London: Arrow, 2009), loc. 3777 of 4805, Kindle.
87 “fruitful kind of . . . opinions”: Joseph McBride, “Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock,” Sight & Sound 45, no. 4 (Autumn 1976): 225.
87 “Although I think . . . them”: Tony Lee Moral, Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie (Lanham, MD; Toronto; Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2013), 100.
87 Hitchcock told some . . . conceived: McGilligan, Darkness and Light, loc. 4009 of 20272, Kindle.
88 “to tell me . . . life!”: Truffaut, Hitchcock, 34.
89 “not a backward . . . century”: Spoto, Spellbound by Beauty, loc. 276 of 4805, Kindle.
89 “exactly how male and female joined”: E. M. Forster, diary entry, cited in Wendy Moffatt, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010), 39.
89 “wo
men with sex . . . baubles”: Roderick Mann, “Hitchcock: Show Must Go On,” Los Angeles Times, August 8, 1978, part IV, 7.
89 “a woman who . . . air”: Alfred Hitchcock, “Elegance Above Sex,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 1, 95. Originally published in Hollywood Reporter, November 1962, 172.
89 “Anything could happen . . . taxi”: American Film Institute, “Dialogue on Film: Alfred Hitchcock,” in Sidney Gottlieb, ed., Alfred Hitchcock Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 93.
89 a real-life experience . . . thirties: Evan Hunter, Kirby.
90 “typical American woman . . . mother”: Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, loc. 10034 of 15740, Kindle.
90 “the snow princess . . . writer”: Bryan Mawr, quoted in Robert Lacey, Grace (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1994), 138.
90 Hitchcock’s view of . . . women: Steven DeRosa, Writing with Hitchcock: The Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes (New York and London: Faber & Faber, 2001).
90 In each of . . . characters: For a brilliant description of Lisa’s “alien presence” in Rear Window, see Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory, 2nd ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), 73.
91 women, as Richard Allen . . . intuition: Richard Allen, Hitchcock’s Romantic Irony (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 81.
92 “very well known . . . breasts”: Arthur Knight, “Conversation with Alfred Hitchcock,” in Gottlieb, ed., Alfred Hitchcock Interviews, 175. Originally published in Oui, February 1973, 67–68, 82, 114, 116–21.
92 “A woman who . . . you”: “Women,” in Gottlieb, ed., Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2, 226. Originally published in Picture Show and TV Mirror, September 12, 1959, 15.
93 there were multiple . . . judging: Including, Eric D. Morley (Miss World) to AH, October 15, 1963; George J. Cavalier (Miss California) to AH, April 4, 1963; Maureen Dragone (Miss Zodiac) to AH, July 29, 1972, AHC MHL.
94 sounded out about . . . 1978: Jason Frankfort, Women’s Basketball Association to AH, October 24, 1978, AHC MHL.
94 “It’s easy for . . . again”: June Morfield, “The One Man Grace Kelly Couldn’t Say ‘No’ To,” TV Radio Mirror, July 1962, 89.
The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock Page 34